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“Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born’” (Judges 13:8).
I still remember the feeling when the hospital let us leave to take care of our first child. Talking about it later, my wife and I both thought we should have been sent with an instruction manual to know how to provide for and protect this new life. The angel of the Lord appeared to Samson’s parents and explained how special he was going to be, and that is exactly what his father asked: teach us what we are to do. Samson would be used by God, and so God had to be the One to instruct his parents on how he should be raised. They consulted the manual. They didn’t make excuses or rely on their own faulty attempts or do what they thought seemed right. They let God teach them. We, too, have a manual that comes with our new life in Christ. We are taught by God, and Scripture is God’s inspired Word. Will we make excuses? Give it our best try with fallible human resources? Believe and do what seems right to us? Or, say “teach us what we are to do?”
Whose teaching do you follow?
Doug Kashorek
Plattsburgh church of Christ
Plattsburgh, NY